Online report of the Progressive Review. For 53 years, the news while there's still time to do something about it.

August 2, 2016

Personal and collective virtue in politics

From our overstocked archives

Sam Smith, 2011 - My piece on mob politics evoked a number of critical
responses in part because I suggested that in a two-mob country it was all
right to vote for the mob that does the least evil, primarily because change is
not going to come at the voting booth but by citizen action:

“This doesn't mean that one doesn't vote for a Demo thug as
president or some lower position, but it means that one does so recognizing
that the selection of the least dangerous mob in town is a far different matter
than backing a political cause.”

Blogger Arthur Silber called me a “pig-fucking
collaborationist,” to which I take some umbrage as I once was responsible for
the feeding of several pigs and never once found them sexually arousing.

There were also milder criticisms:

“I agree with your conclusion that what really matters are
the actions people take outside the voting booth to improve the world. However,
I disagree with your cavalier suggestion that people vote for the more
moderately thuggish Democrats, as if voting for the lesser evil in itself had
no consequences.

“By voting for the lesser evil, we continue to bestow
unearned and undeserved legitimacy on the Democratic Party. If it were even
possible to reform the party and restore it to its populist roots, we can be
sure that would never happen if progressives habitually award it their votes
because "otherwise the more evil Republican will win".

“In my opinion, all progressives should bolt the Democratic
Party and give their votes to a third party that actually represents their core
values. A number of contenders exist: the Green Party (which accepts no money
from corporate PACs), the Socialist Workers Party, the Communist Party of
America, etc.”

As one of the founders of the national Green Party, as well
as the DC Statehood Party (which held public offices for 25 years) I have long
been a fan of third parties. I have been a member of one for four decades. But
I have also found that many of those attracted to them view their potential
mainly in terms of top down politics. I see it the other way around.

There are also two ethical issues: one the question of the
moral position for an individual to take; the other is the political position
that will produce the best results.

They are not the same. As I wrote some years back in Green
Horizons:

“To slow down traffic I might be morally justified in
stepping into the Interstate, spreading my arms, and shouting,
"stop," but it is probably not the most useful thing I could do for
the cause. Besides, like some third party presidential candidates, I might not
have another opportunity. My initial virtue might turn out to have been
terminal.”

The conflict is often between antiseptic and useful virtue.
The danger with the former is that it too often is a sort of moral narcissism
with little social value and the problem with the latter is that it can easily
be co-opted and compromised.

Having a bit of Quaker blood and having gone to a Quaker
school, I am not unfamiliar with this conflict. The Quakers, for example,
periodically withdrew from conventional politics, engaging instead in what we
would call lobbying or activism, pressing specific issues. It is also true that
they have been pretty good at compromise. For example, William Penn reached the
only European-Indian agreement – and not even in writing – that was actually
upheld by both sides. And there is the apocryphal story of Penn’s ship, on its
way to the new land, being attacked by pirates and of the great Quaker taking a
knife and cutting the line with which they were boarding the craft. Said Penn:
“If thee wants this rope, thee may have it.”

Of course, Quakerism is a religion and if your primary
concern is your personal righteousness, then that’s not a bad route. If your
concern, on the other hand, is the collective progress of a community or a
nation, than the messier culture of politics may prove more productive.

Sam Smith Green Horizon - In the 20th century, if you wanted
to make a big splash in national third party politics, the best way to do it
was with a major icon such as Roosevelt, Wallace or Perot. Here are the best
numbers for various third party candidates:

All other 20th century third party candidates got 3% or
less, including Debs in three additional runs and Thurmond and Henry Wallace in
the hot 1948 race. It is useful to note that all the leading third party
candidates - with the exception of George Wallace and Debs - drew heavily from
mainstream constituencies rather than running as radical reformers.

Obviously the numbers don't tell the whole story. For
example, the New Deal drew from Populist, Progressive and Socialist ideas
despite low turnouts for their candidates. The Populists, despite topping out a
9% in a presidential race, influenced the politics of two Roosevelts, Theodore
and Franklin.

Still, if you want to affect national politics with a
national third party presidential run, history suggests that getting over 5% -
preferably closer to 10% - is a good way to start. Otherwise, you can probably
expect a less direct impact for your efforts, perhaps decades in the future.
And, in any case, you can expect your swing at presidential politics to be
fairly short-lived.

That does not mean, however, that these parties - like
certain insects - were merely born, had sex, and then died. In fact, some of
the third parties had long, healthy lives, in large part because they were as
concerned with local as with national results. The Socialist Party is the most
dramatic recent example, with a history dating back over 100 years. The party's
own history suggest that eclecticism didn't hurt:

'From the beginning the Socialist Party was the ecumenical
organization for American radicals. Its membership included Marxists of various
kinds, Christian socialists, Zionist and anti-Zionist Jewish socialists,
foreign-language speaking sections, single-taxers and virtually every variety
of American radical. On the divisive issue of "reform vs.
revolution," the Socialist Party from the beginning adopted a compromise
formula, producing platforms calling for revolutionary change but also making
"immediate demands" of a reformist nature. A perennially unresolved
issue was whether revolutionary change could come about without violence; there
were always pacifists and evolutionists in the Party as well as those opposed
to both those views. The Socialist Party historically stressed cooperatives as
much as labor unions, and included the concepts of revolution by education and
of 'building the new society within the shell of the old.'"

By World War I it had elected 70 mayors, two members of
Congress, and numerous state and local officials. Milwaukee alone had three
Socialist mayors in the last century, including Frank Zeidler who held office
for 12 years ending in 1960.

Some highly successful third parties never ran anyone for
president (except in fusion with one of the major parties). Albeit in a
confused and weakened status at the moment, the Liberal Party of New York
remains the longest lived third party next to the Socialists. Founded in 1944 -
in a break with the more radical American Labor Party - the Liberals benefited
immensely from New York's fusion-friendly election laws, which allowed it to
support Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 and to claim credit for giving Kennedy
enough votes for his presidential victory. Other nominees of the party have
included Averill Harriman, Mario Cuomo, Jacob Javits, Robert Kennedy, Fiorello
LaGuardia and John Lindsey. Swinging the gate of New York politics made it
exceptionally important.

The Farmer Labor Party in Minnesota lasted 26 years before
merging with the Democrats. During that time it elected a senator and a
governor. And in DC, the Statehood Party held an elected position for 25 years
and some years later merged with the DC Green Party.

There is, it appears, no one right way to run a third party
in the U.S. It always has to be a form of guerrilla politics because the rules
are so thoroughly stacked against those not Democrats or Republicans. Thus the
judging the right tactics at the right time, as opposed to planning moves
strictly on the basis of their presumed virtue, would seem to be the wisest
course.

SAY IT AGAIN, SAM

ABOUT THE EDITOR

The Review is edited by Sam Smith, who covered Washington under nine presidents, has edited the Progressive Review and its predecessors since 1964, wrote four books, been published in five anthologies, helped to start six organizations (including the DC Humanities Council, the national Green Party and the DC Statehood Party), was a plaintiff in three successful class action suits, served as a Coast Guard officer, and played in jazz bands for four decades.

ABOUT THE REVIEW

Regularly ahead of the curve, the Review has opposed federal drug policy for over 40 years, was a lonely media voice against the massive freeways planned for Washington, was an early advocate of bikeways and light rail, and helped spur the creation of the DC Statehood Party and the national Green Party,

In November 1990 it devoted an entire issue to the ecologically sound city and how to develop it. The article was republished widely.

Even before Clinton's nomination we exposed Arkansas political scandals that would later become major issues. .

We reported on NSA monitoring of U.S. phone calls in the 1990s, years before it became a major media story.

In 2003 editor Sam Smith wrote an article for Harper's comprised entirely of falsehoods about Iraq by Bush administration officials.

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In 1971 we published our first article in support of single payer universal health care